The Hollow Men
by The X-Piig
Summary: "Shape without form, shade without colour, paralyzed force, gesture without motion." Immortality and the descent into madness.
1. I

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THE HOLLOW MEN

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AUTHOR: The X-Piig

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WARNINGS: Angst, animeverse, angst, short chapters, angst, barely-there shounen-ai, angst, veritable mishmash of religious ideals, angst, general ambiguity, angst, character death, angst, depiction of mental decay, angst, and most likely a spoiler or two.

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SUMMARY: "Shape without form, shade without color, paralyzed force, gesture without motion."

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NOTES: As the title implies, this piece was inspired by T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", which is one of my favourite poems, despite the fact I don't agree with a word of it. The inspiration comes mostly from his images (good lord, but Eliot's good at images), though there are a few references to the poem's actual meaning here and there. Basically, whenever it talks about faith.

I'm writing this for my Writing 12 class – being, of course, the Best Class Ever, as I'm basically getting grades for doing what I'd usually be doing to AVOID homework. It's a series of five glimpses into Vash's mind over the span of his inevitably long life. Each one is based on one of the five passages of "Hollow Men", etc etc. Most of it is addressed to Wolfwood. It's more of a dramatic monologue or Matt Good -style manifesto, all talk and no action. Call it an experiment in fusing poetry and prose.

Reviews and constructive criticism appreciated. Flames will cause me to chew my Teddy Grahams in a slightly more offended manner. 

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So...

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I

I sit with you in the middle of the desert. This vast expanse of desolation lies before us, behind us, beside us. You have travelled with me and sought this useless body when it didn't want to be found. Any man would be grateful for the effort you have made. I, for the moment, am grateful and content, more satisfied by your presence at my side than I would ever expect or admit. At least in that respect we are on the same page.

Your life seems so fleeting sometimes. Human passions fuel their hearts for a few short years then carry them back down to the dust. It's all you can do to pretend those years mean something. I was half-right when I assumed you gained purpose from your God, your work and the children you protect. Because each of those are facets of something greater than a cross or a building – your Faith.

The desert creeps up our legs and into our mouths, trying to devour us alive. This planet can make you feel so powerless. You talk, as if words can stave off the sand's hunger for another few hours. The shape of your Faith is drawn out in terms you desperately hope I will not understand, wanting to make itself heard yet wary of losing potency through expression. You give your Faith an image and a name you gleaned from that Book of yours.

"Eden," you say, "is far from here."

I have never borne witness to this honesty in you before, and I suspect I will never do so again. The burden of your doubts and ecstasies become the verdant imagery of your Eden. There is water there, clear over beds of age-smoothed rocks, all diligently observed by a host of leaning trees. I am flattered to be included in this pristine vision of yours, though flattery doesn't seem to suit the situation. It is superficial when we are not. The surface betrays none of the intimacy of having YOUR vision in MY head. I didn't realize mere words could feel this searching or this close. Intimate. Close. Words we should not use in such as harsh world, but do.

And why not? Would you spend your whole life waiting to enter Eden? Maybe that Faith I admire is no more than a sense of duty, and you are as hollow as I am. I'd never know. Friend, I only know as much as you tell me. Friend, tomorrow you could die and I would never know more of you than I do now. So eat, so drink, so tell me Eden is Faith and not just waiting. You will die and I will just keep walking. I will miss you, and I do not envy the peace of escape your mortality will inevitably provide.

But that PASSION.

Extend a length of spider's silk over iles of terrain and you will have an accurate representation of my life – long and resilient, but only substantial to the most dedicated onlooker. Your life is the web it would have made, compact and mesmerising. You burn brightly while I lie here smouldering. Images of heat in the middle of the night. Here is the paradox of my ideals: that I wish immortality upon humans while acknowledging the beauty in the brevity of their lives.

Perhaps I am more like my brother than I would like to think. He too was fond of death and insect analogies.

A woman in Inepril lost hope because her son was dying and the cavalry had left town with a suitcase and a medical bag. How can I have hope when everyone I know is dying and even the cavalry can't help? My ideals are to my weariness as your Faith is to yours. It's formula, it's logic: you see God where I see Her. But Faith can carry you until you fall, then grant you peace in Eden, while my ideals lead me in circles. So how long before I fall out of orbit, before I waver? I hate this doubt.

Human, my brother and I are more lost than you ever will be. But friend, that burden of yours is nothing more than the weight of ammunition. You can still, and always, drop it and find your way again, and remember why you carried it in the first place. You will know then what I know, that adults are just children with dangerous toys. 

For now, though, remain blind to this truth. You're not ready to see. You are aware that something is missing, yet refuse to consider what it may be. You and I are hollow for different reasons. I will miss you when you're gone.

So...


	2. II

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NOTES: Behold the Next Bit. It's set waaaaay after the end of the anime, several hundred years even. At some point during that time Knives has gone out of control again, and Vash has as of yet been unable to recapture him. As with the first chapter, it's all description and internal musing, no actual plot (god forbid). To clarify, though: when he says "Mother" he is referring and/or talking to Rem, as she could be seen as a mother figure to him, and when he says "Friend" he is referring/talking to Wolfwood.

Huge thankee-sai to Bennu for the review. I'm glad you found it so non-utterly-sucky ^_^

WARNINGS: All previous ones apply, plus reincarnation, extended metaphor, and a tiny tribute to Coleridge's _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_. Oh, and angst.

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II

Forgive me, Mother, I have fallen out of orbit, out of step. This isn't the first time I've rejected humanity, and I suspect it is not the last. But Mother, I'm so tired and so lost; your other son torments me when I offer him salvation, time and time again. Allow me this pause in my endless pursuit. Sometimes the ceiling's etchings and dust-continents turn white against a blue background, and I am back at your side. The vision is familiar, that of azure skies and emerald grass, and your soft ethereal voice as it drifts around and through me. I used to smile when you spoke to me there. Now I can't even look at you.

The lapse will pass and I will find myself back in the oppressive gloom of this dusty, confining apartment. The air in here is thick with abstract concepts, positively sluggish with shame and confusion and frustration. Or maybe it's just the smoke from your cigarettes, Friend. It's fitting that your presence should add to the discomfort of hiding out in this jail cell of a residence. Either it's a sign I should emerge, or mere defiance of my labelling you a blanket solution. Desperation told me your appearance could make this okay. Instead it just made it harder to breathe.

Five times now you have found me, the surface always different above an unchanging depth. At one time my belief in the finality of your death caused me undue grief. I underestimated your persistence; your existence is apparently as cyclical as mine. Incarnation after incarnation, you always seem to find your way to me. Sometimes you remember me, sometimes I explain, and sometimes neither words nor understanding seem necessary. Something in your spirit insists you remain a loyal friend to this lost and hopeless body. 

I am as grateful now as I was that first time, although my position now is too familiar to be entirely comfortable. History has never repeated itself so accurately before, at least not in my experience. Because you were there the first time I wavered, you saw me lock myself away and put it upon yourself to set me free. Is that what you are here to do now? Or will you just join me in this prison, Friend? I'll admit I was disappointed to discover that the strength of will I admired in you was more a product of experience than an inherent trait, that it did not carry from one cycle to the next. I have observed this particular edition for less than a week, and have yet to determine the extent of your strength. If you are weak you will be unable to help me. You will lose yourself again.

Heads. One side of the coin shows my joy at your continual appearance in my life, despite the grief at your inevitably repeated disappearance. You are always welcome at my side.

Tails. The other side is marred by sorrow that Eden is still beyond your reach, to say nothing of the guilt that I benefit from your imprisonment on this bleak planet. The adversities of that first life and your redemption near its end seemed to me enough to earn you a place amid the Garden's teeming life. So why are you here instead of there? Was it the burden you refused to drop, even at the end of all things? We found you kneeling at the altar, clutching that contradictory weapon of yours, even in death. And each successive version of you has borne a similar weight, whether tangible or purely symbolic. Maybe you were never fully redeemed – maybe you never will be. 

Watch the coin's ascent, peak, descent. Watch it slip between the floorboards before its revelation.

I will not accept that Eden never was. I see it even now, beyond the gravestones and churning sandstorms. I hear Her singing there, with a voice that sparks hope instead of shame. I know you see and hear the same; your Faith, fortunately, did survive your death. But this paradise is so far away from the blank walls and uneven floorboards of our current reality. 

If you cannot be in Eden, Friend, at least you are with me. The air in here is poison, my motives products of weakness and greed. I want the comfort of your presence or the lifeline of your strength. I want to hide here until the world forgets me, then maybe in rebirth I can continue and resolve. Or maybe I'd just forget myself, and my brother, and Her, and even you. Eternal life leaves too much time for doubt, and too many nights spent half-alive with you in this dark apartment. How can I seek absolution if even shame can't move me from this post? 

Mother, your son was bound to waver. But for how long? I will not face you in the visions which plague my life-in-death. I will not face you ever again.

So…


	3. III

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NOTES: Handed the finished product in to Mr. Greene a few days ago – only three days late, crazily enough. I will, of course, continue to take my sweet time posting the rest. I believe "jerk" is the term you're looking for ^_^

Not much to say about this chapter. It's another several hundred years after part II, and big shiny cities are popping up all over Gunsmoke. Vash, meanwhile, is alone and watching too much TV while his brother causes even more damage to the spiders.

Thankee-sais to mvdiva, Zarmina and Lli (yay Lli!) for the reviews. Glad you're all enjoying it. And Lli: angst? What angst? *silly hands-laced-under-chin mock-innocent look*

Oh, and Piig's Moment of Self-Indulgent Gloatation: 94% on my English Provincial! WOO! Maybe now I can regain my writing confidence (… heh, yeah right).

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WARNINGS: Even SHORTER chapter, pining Vash, angst.

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III

There is something about the city's polished surfaces that speaks of more desolation than the desert ever did. The humans here live soullessly, weaving around each other in their empty little dance, striving for distance while fearing a life alone. They are stacking corpses so they will have slopes to climb. They are writing my brother's name in lights and making him a God. At least I am no longer the devil – time has let them forget me at last.

The men and women of this planet have come a long way since the fall. The land is still dead; nothing will grow here except their fear of impermanence and need for direction. Still they build these cities bigger, sleeker and faster, they choose idols more beautiful. My brother's hand finds the key on each of their backs and twists it so their gears can turn, their limbs can move and they can claim they aren't afraid. That's right, Brother, build their confidence so you can grin all the wider when their bones crack under your palm. Their love for you will dull the pain when your sweetness inevitably turns sour.

Friend, where are you now? A hundred or a thousand times I have found you, in slums and towers and mansion, and lost you in the dust. Ten years together, eighty apart. The length of my life reduces years to sand-grains and meetings to instances, yet cruelly does not touch the time between. 

Some nights I crawl back to consciousness only to face my brother's leering image on the television screen. In the moments before I remember who and what I am, I find myself trusting that silver voice. This lapse is less welcome than those where She appears. When the slideshow of his repeated betrayal plays at last behind my eyes, that is when I need you most, Friend. That instant of trust and security, once stripped and exposed as false, only makes me crave more tangible comfort. You would not worship that forked tongue. You have been consistent in your devotion, both to me and to your Book. 

I am beginning to forget things, just as the rest of the world is forgetting itself. I find it hard to remember the last shape and face you took, or that the hollowness remains even when you are by my side. I've forgotten many of Her words and the ones I tried to make for myself. I've lost the ability to endure our time apart with any kind of grace. What a joke. Is this all I can do any more, plead for the illusion of stability while my brother makes and breaks this vast machine? These humans are not cogs; they are sentient beings with every right to live. I vowed once to serve that right, to protect them from each other and from him. Instead I lie awash in pale flickering light, inconsistent as my grasp on my ideals. Have I forgotten my promise? Or am I just too weak to carry through?

My will to act takes leave of me as easily as my memories. How long before something else slips? I have spent so long in orbit, treading circles in the sand, accumulating questions without answers. I linger in the hollows now and stumble even at the peaks. This isn't wavering, this is defeat! This is acceptance of my final loss of power! Take me, Brother, flick the switch that eases fear. Join me, Friend, I've lost my own strength to the thought of yours.

No. This is another lapse, and I retract. There is too much time ahead of me to give up now. I'll just lie here until I remember how to play the hero -- unless that, too, is lost.

So…


	4. IV

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NOTES: Penultimate bit, and the shortest of the lot. Who knew Wolfwood had a green thumb? Writing teacher gave it an A-minus – minus, because it was "too ponderous". All I can say is, well… good point. I'm happy with the grade, though, even if that jerk Matt topped me after spending a SINGLE evening on his piece. Damn genii *shakes fist*

Thankee-sai to mvdiva for the review. I promise I'll give him donuts after the last chapter is posted ^_^

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IV

Turbid water chokes the riverbed, dead trees wrestle their roots from the soil. Not burning but breaking, this is the end of the Eden you created, Friend. Decades of toil have gone to coaxing life out from the barren ground. Just one you wanted dust to be a beginning rather than an end. Between the mountains you would teach the ignorant desert all you could of beauty and colour, giving YOUR life for that of this unwilling pupil. It resisted and it fought, but in the end submitted.

When I came to you this time you were content amid the spoils of your victory. You smiled at me from an ocean of rippling grass and asked what took me so long. The image of your Eden was complete, down to the crystalline water and tree-branch shadows on the rocks. And at the centre of it all lay a lake of placid blue, eagerly accepting what the river had to offer. At night the stars suspended themselves just below the surface and laughed at us for thinking we could reach them.

Now the lake churns and boils, as tainted as the river that feeds it. At night the stars remain safely above us, refusing now to stoop or risk their brilliance for creatures so hopeless and small. They are too far away now to hear our protests, hear our claims that this whole endeavour was in their honour. All we wanted was sublunary heaven. Maybe they thought our efforts were to mock them, and this destruction is their punishment, confirmation of the truth we would deny: Eden simply can't exist down here. In the end it was another illusion. In the end it was taken from us. 

The truth is...

Your plan was flawed from the beginning, Friend. This valley was beautiful, but it never was paradise. It can't be, unless its breezes carry the sound of Her voice, or the presence of your God. Like my brother, you wanted a heaven that excluded all but those you deemed worthy of its comfort. This was to be yours, mine, and the sisters' if they found their way. Compassion wasn't meant to be so confined. By rejecting the world you have faltered in your Faith and allowed the burden to grow heavier on your shoulder. How did a vision borne of Faith create a place so devoid of it? This garden is too empty to be Eden. 

So we are alone on the river bank, powerless spectators to my brother's destruction. His greed will tear down the trees of paradise and raise another soulless city in their stead. Your garden was a lie, but at least it was alive. This loss is enough to break you, push you past speech to a child's wordless grief. I can hold you, but I have no real strength to offer. Your Faith is losing to weariness, Her voice rings faintly if at all, leaving us with no one but each other. Father and Mother are still so far away, and we are so very weak.

So...


	5. V

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NOTES: Erk! Forgot I hadn't finished posting this. Here's the last bit – a little sad, a little longer than the last two. Tricia said this part made her want to hug Vash.

Thankee-sai to mvdiva (again ^_^) for the review. I must remember to check out that Frost poem…

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WARNINGS: Angst, kleenex required, character death (times three), and angst.

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V

I think the desert has consumed me at last. I was wrong that night to think its hunger was reserved for the hours before sunrise. It has been devouring me for centuries from the inside out, relishing the taste of every aspect that breaks and is lost. Here on this precipice I am miles above my destination and even farther away from where I wish to be. Rather, I WOULD wish it, had I still the capacity for such fancy. It stands instead another casualty of the desert, another thing I've lost.

I know it's gone because everything is. Hope, will, strength, the vision of paradise, even my need for any of these things; all are absent from this shell. I have only grown more hollow over time. Friend, you are beside me but my love for you is gone. Memories of your loyalty and my gratitude are drawn out in shifting film grain in my head, cheap and meaningless to me. I am aware that we once meant something to each other. We gave comfort and support when it was required, even offered purpose if it meant escape from despair. But you and I have nothing left to give. 

"Thank you." I speak out of obligation and knowledge that it is appropriate. They are the last words you will ever hear me say.

This planet is dead again. The parasites that marred its surface for a few short millennia have dwindled and vanished. You are the last, Friend. My brother turned on them at last and set their plastic empire ablaze, as if they needed his help. The ease of his victory apparently did not dampen its sweetness – they were dead and he was not. Now he is dead and we are not. This isn't victory, just a consequence of my loss of ideals. 

I suppose this place was always dead. Nothing ever did grow here; your Eden was an illusion after all. Men and women reached constantly upwards, but all they raised were skeletal cities and mountainous tombs, monuments now buried with their creators. They were so afraid of their own mortality, of the certainty that they would be forgotten. The wasted plain behind us is ample justification for that fear. You and I may remember them, but not for long.

I'm sure I've voiced my contempt for self-destruction before. Even when time and weariness freed me from most of my self-made restrictions, the determination to seek an answer other than death persisted. I'd like to believe it was a product of Her lessons, some remnant that inexplicably endured, but it was likely no more than the instinct for self-preservation. Apparently an eternity wasn't enough for me. But, as I have said, nothing now remains of my ideals. This emptiness is liberating in a way that I can't appreciate or enjoy.

The sun's descent fills the chasm at my feet with shadow. Perhaps the rocks below have no sense of time or memory, and they believe that darkness was always present. Of course, where there is light there is always shade – even Eden's trees shed patterns on the grass. The darkness stands between the object and the ground. So too stands the Shadow. 

The Shadow is my brother, my doubt, my regret, my fear, my shame, my sin, my flaws, my lies, my grief, my loss, my apathy, my WEARINESS. It grows in me, to fill the places time has carved out so meticulously. It rusts my limbs and joints then taunts me in my paralysis. It has swallowed my emotion and expression, strength and compassion. Realize, though, that a shadow his no substance, it is merely the absence of light. I have nothing now, so I am all shadow. I am truly hollow. The only thing left to do, I think, is dispose of the shell.

Follow me if you wish, Friend. I have lost the words to invite you, though I think this gesture speaks loudly enough. I can step forward. I can look down. I have never been able to do this before. I don't think either of us will be coming back here, and I don't expect to reach Eden. Drop your burden, recall your Faith, and go there for me, if you can. Ask Her to sing for you.

Life is so very long...

Life is...

So...


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